Ritika Patel

PhD Researcher (RG Power, Knowledge, and Servitude at Sea" (POESIS))

German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) and
Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) 
Room 2.022
Niebuhrstraße 5
D-53113 Bonn
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PhD Project: "Saline Struggles: Colonialism, Extraction, and Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies in Gujarat's Brine-Based Coastal Economy (c. 1830s–1950s)"

Supervisors: Dr. Rapti Siriwardane-de Zoysa, Prof. Dr. Anna Katharina Hornigde 

Ritika Patel
© Photo taken by a friend

Academic Profile

Saline Struggles: Colonialism, Extraction, and Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies in Gujarat's Brine-Based Coastal Economy (c. 1830s–1950s)

This research takes Gujarat's colonial salt economy to explore the framework of Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies developed by the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies. The colonial salt monopoly produced a structural power imbalance between the colonial state and Agariya salt producing communities, enforced through legal dispossession, technological imposition, labour subordination, and the systematic extraction of local ecological knowledge. The research examines how fiscal extraction and ecological transformation operated together as a single mechanism of dispossession across three case study regions in Gujarat, Dharasana, the Little Rann of Kutch, and Kandla, drawing on archival research, ethnographic fieldwork with Agariya producers, and seascape and landscape analysis.

The project asks how the colonial salt monopoly produced these dependencies through entangled legal, technological, and labour mechanisms, how the colonial regime constituted a form of knowledge extraction by appropriating and delegitimising Agariya expertise in tidal rhythms and soil composition, and what continuities between colonial and postcolonial governance explain the persistence of these dependencies into the present.

      2023–2025
      MA in Modern History, University of Delhi

      2020–2023
      BA (Honours) in History, Hansraj College, University of Delhi

      2026
      Research Assistant, Our Stories, Our Words (OSOW) Project, Zubaan

      2025
      Research Fellow, Raah Foundation (GRT Research Fellowship)

      2024
      Research Intern, National Foundation for India (Abhijit Sen Rural Internship)

      • Academic prizes for top rank in BA (Hons) History, Hansraj College, University of Delhi (2020–21, 2021–22)
      • Postgraduate Member, Royal Historical Society (RHS), UK, 2024

      Peer-Reviewed Articles

      • 2025. "Salt 'Farming': Gendered Labour and Ecologies of Migrant Workers in Little Rann of Kutch." Berkeley Journal of Sociology 66.
      • 2025. "Perturbing Imperialism: Voicing Indian Nannies through the Colonial Archive." Itihasology Journal 3.

       

      Book Chapters

      • 2025. "Linking Land Rights to Cultural Practices of Tribal Communities in Harda, Madhya Pradesh." In Seeking the Questions: Field Notes from Rural India. AlterNotes Press.

       

      Public Writing

      • 2025. "It's the Small Things | The Language of Dal Dhokli." The Wire.

       

      Reports and Essays

      • 2025. With S. Bhilare. "A Feminist Political Ecology of Water Crisis in Palghar, Maharashtra." Centre for Policy Research and Action, Raah Foundation.
      • 2024. "Impact of Land Commodification and Forest Management Policies on Indigenous Communities: A Case Study from Harda District, Madhya Pradesh." National Foundation of India.
      • 2024. "From Profit to Peril: How Capitalism Fuels the Climate Crisis." SABAB (8th edition), Lady Shri Ram College.
      • 2023. "Ayahs' Influence in British Homes: Decoding the Power of Colonialism." Brown History Newsletter.